nutupsdrv

NUTUPSDRV(8) Network UPS Tools (NUT) NUTUPSDRV(8)

NAME

nutupsdrv - generic manual for unified NUT drivers

SYNOPSIS

nutupsdrv-hnutupsdrv[OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

nutupsdrv is not actually a driver. This is a combined man page for
the shared code that is the core of many drivers within the Network UPS
Tools package.
For information on the specific drivers, see their individual man
pages.
UPS drivers provide a communication channel between the physical UPS
hardware and the upsd(8) server. The driver is responsible for trans-
lating the native protocol of the UPS to the common format used by the
rest of this package.
The core has two modes of operation which are determined by the command
line switches. In the normal mode, the driver will periodically poll
the UPS for its state and parameters. The results of this command is
presented to upsd. The driver will also handle setting variables and
instant commands if available.
The driver can also instruct the UPS to shut down the load, possibly
after some delay. This mode of operation is intended for cases when it
is known that the UPS is running out of battery power and the systems
attached must be turned off to ensure a proper reboot when power
returns.

NOTE

You probably don’t want to use any of these options directly. You
should use upsdrvctl(8) to control your drivers, and ups.conf(5) to
configure them. The rest of this manual describes options and parame-
ters that generally are not needed by normal users.

OPTIONS

-h display an help message without doing anything else. This will
also list possible values for -x in that driver, and other help
text that the driver’s author may have provided.
-a id autoconfigure this driver using the id section of ups.conf(5).
-D Raise the debugging level. Use this multiple times to see more
details.
-i interval
Set the poll interval for the device
-V print only version information, then exit
-L print parseable list of driver variables. Mostly useful for con-
figuration wizard and alike.
-k ("kill" power) Force shutdown mode. The UPS will power off the
attached load if possible.
You should use upsdrvctlshutdown whenever possible instead of
calling this directly.
-r directory
The driver will chroot(2) to directory during initialization.
This can be useful when securing systems.
In addition to the state path, many systems will require
/dev/null to exist within directory for this to work. The
serial ports are opened before the chroot call, so you do not
need to create them inside the jail. In fact, it is somewhat
safer if you do not.
-u username
If started as root, the driver will setuid(2) to the user id
associated with username.
If you do not specify this value and start it as root, the
driver will switch to the default value that was compiled into
the code. This is typically ’nobody’, and is far from ideal.
-x var=val
define a variable called var with the value of var in the
driver. This varies from driver to driver - see the specific
man pages for more information.
This is like setting var=val in the ups.conf(5), but -x over-
rides any settings from that file.
device The /dev entry corresponding to the TTY the UPS is connected to.
This is optional if you are using the -a autoconfiguration
option, since the "port" entry in the ups.conf(5) will be used
when available.

DIAGNOSTICS

Information about the startup process is printed to stdout. Additional
messages after that point are available in the syslog. The ups clients
such as upsc(8) can be used to query the status of a UPS.

PROGRAM CONTROL

You should always use upsdrvctl(8) to control the drivers. While
drivers can be started by hand for testing purposes, it is not recom-
mended for production use.

FILES

ups.conf(5)
Required configuration file. This contains all details on which
drivers to start and where the hardware is attached.

BUGS

Some of the drivers may have bugs. See their manuals for more informa-
tion.